I'm going to release a serious map with some serious performance issues (halp!), but I really want to make a silly map of just platforms and push entities to make you fly between them.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
edited February 2013
The main cool thing of it is that once I'd made the shape of the corridor, it only took a few minutes to extrude it out and copypasta it into the entire spiral. Which means that making curvy corridors with height variations won't be that hard. Oh and each segment is separate and on the grid, so you can easily replace one segment with a variation, change the curve or something similar.
I think I'm going to try making the tree map I mentioned above out of a whole bunch of curvy corridors.
I think I'm going to release this map shortly since it's really easy to make: spacejump
Concept is simple - there are a series of platforms that all have a push entity that force you to the next area. The bases will be higher at the ends, split to 2 platforms on their side, and 3 in the middle, all at lower depth than the bases. Requires Extra Entities for push & map settings (to max view distance), but there is no detail in the map at all (because your computer renders everything in game).
Right now it's set up as a combat map, but I have plans to easily make it into a silly map for classic & MvM by adding resource points to each platform, and adding platforms to the middle on the sides with tech points. This way teams should get a lot of res (typically around 4-5 RT min) and hopefully can control 1 tech point each.
It's a silly map, you'll fall sometimes, but with my testing last night it was fairly rare. I found last night fades fly a bit too far from the push but its recoverable even without blink, and I had to bump up the push so fat little gorgies can still make the jump. The map is surrounded by death trigger so you can't fly off too far as lerk.
Please give me some input on the map concept or the name. I'll publish the combat version tonight after I make the ready room. MvM/classic won't take long to make after that.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
I'm feeling slightly less clever now. It seems the way that I've been making curved corridors is pretty similar to a method pSyk0mAn outlined in his thread Tutorial: Extruding (Curved) Corridors back in 2011.
The main distinction between his method and what I've been doing is that I've been adding a vertex off to the side of the initial cross-section and doing all of the rotation around that vertex. After the curved area has been completed, I then delete that vertex.
I'm feeling slightly less clever now. It seems the way that I've been making curved corridors is pretty similar to a method pSyk0mAn outlined in his thread Tutorial: Extruding (Curved) Corridors back in 2011.
The main distinction between his method and what I've been doing is that I've been adding a vertex off to the side of the initial cross-section and doing all of the rotation around that vertex. After the curved area has been completed, I then delete that vertex.
I cant seem to get my rotation to work around the vertex/edge as noted in the tutorial. Tilde (~) isn't shifting my rotation origin. Help?
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
I'm not sure whether rotation origin cycle is bound by default in the current version of Spark. At the very least you can go into "Settings > Key Bindings > Edit" and assign keys to Rotation Origin Cycle (Previous) and Rotation Origin Cycle (Next). I have the ; and ' keys respectively bound for the two commands ( , and . for the Move Origin Cycle (Previous) and Move Origin Cycle (Next) commands.
I've done some more playing with curves and come up with a room which might make it into my next map:
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Texturing curves is definitely harder and more tedious than texturing simple rooms.
Also, trying to texture those bevels with anything other than a flat texture makes me really want some better texturing tools.
Evil_bOb1Join Date: 2002-07-13Member: 938Members, Squad Five Blue
Some of us don't always look around the forums so I thought I would post a link to this thread by Scrajm. Mappers should definitely take a look at this.
@Pandademic try it out, with the right tweaks you might have an extremely competitive hit! I can imagine intense battles for the middle node (and map control) provided the map encourages a close fight, and back-and-forth.
On another note, I'm not sure if this has been posted, but has anyone considered an official quality system shock 2 tribute map? ns_shock?
@Pandademic That is pretty similar to the layout I had been using for my map until I read that same thread. That made me tweak it as it caused a bit of a crysis of confidence in just how close the spawns would always be. I also came to the tentative conclusion that that few rez nodes could very well end up with marines being too easily starved of rez by aliens, particularly in light of the various different routes there are between locations on my version.
So I went from this:
to this:
Frankly, I'm unsure if I have made the right decision and it is unlikely that I will know until I manage to get a grey box up and actually test it.
Bit of a nothing post, but maybe you will find it helpful.
Just spent a long time reading through the whole thread, the stuff here is fantastic
Now I'll post my initial planning ideas for a map.
It is a 5tp, 10rt map, but it's still on the board and i'm not entirely sure of several aspects of it, but still wanted to put it here for comments
The blue rooms are random starting spawns for both teams, purple rooms are extra tech points.
I'm trying to create a map with the risk/reward is noticable. eg. geothermal room is an tp expansion with rt, but has 3 access points, the central double RT room will be accessible through only two rooms, but those rooms are part of the central "hub", and so on. The purple arrow is a connection i'm still pondering about, might make it small so no onii or exo can go through it, or might take it out completely
Reading through the posts I notice some arguments against 10 rt's, but since I think this map has some of the "spirit" of mineshaft, and it has 11 RTs, I think it might work
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Interesting design. I like the concept, but the thing that pops out at me immediately as a potential problem is the unbalance in the map.
In my experience, the right hand side of the map would be much less used/important, than the left side. If you could balance that out a bit it would produce a very interesting map.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Next map: ns2_ attrition
Instead of a wagon-wheel layout, a line of tech points. Marines at one end, aliens at the other - think 2fort.
Though it won't be symmetrical. I can't imagine that working too well.
Comments
(its looking better ingame then in the video)
that will look great in any sewer areas
i guess you could make the model non-collidable so that players could walk throw knee high water.
Now to figure out how to incorporate this sort of thing into a map
Commander, research skateboards!
but would make an wesome vent for gorges to slide down.
I'm going to release a serious map with some serious performance issues (halp!), but I really want to make a silly map of just platforms and push entities to make you fly between them.
I think I'm going to try making the tree map I mentioned above out of a whole bunch of curvy corridors.
(I may also make a curvy gorge race map
Concept is simple - there are a series of platforms that all have a push entity that force you to the next area. The bases will be higher at the ends, split to 2 platforms on their side, and 3 in the middle, all at lower depth than the bases. Requires Extra Entities for push & map settings (to max view distance), but there is no detail in the map at all (because your computer renders everything in game).
Right now it's set up as a combat map, but I have plans to easily make it into a silly map for classic & MvM by adding resource points to each platform, and adding platforms to the middle on the sides with tech points. This way teams should get a lot of res (typically around 4-5 RT min) and hopefully can control 1 tech point each.
It's a silly map, you'll fall sometimes, but with my testing last night it was fairly rare. I found last night fades fly a bit too far from the push but its recoverable even without blink, and I had to bump up the push so fat little gorgies can still make the jump. The map is surrounded by death trigger so you can't fly off too far as lerk.
Please give me some input on the map concept or the name. I'll publish the combat version tonight after I make the ready room. MvM/classic won't take long to make after that.
The main distinction between his method and what I've been doing is that I've been adding a vertex off to the side of the initial cross-section and doing all of the rotation around that vertex. After the curved area has been completed, I then delete that vertex.
I cant seem to get my rotation to work around the vertex/edge as noted in the tutorial. Tilde (~) isn't shifting my rotation origin. Help?
I've done some more playing with curves and come up with a room which might make it into my next map:
That's my challenge for today. To see how hard it'll be to cleanly texture that room.
Also, trying to texture those bevels with anything other than a flat texture makes me really want some better texturing tools.
(Try to imagine that middle bit as a tree)
Making maps competitive
Relating to the discussion in that thread on spawn distances, here's a layout I'm toying with: http://i.imgur.com/JEAznDp.png?2
4 techs, 7 RTs. Guaranteed close spawn. But since both teams are fighting for the same 2nd there's no concern about aliens getting a guaranteed 2nd.
Is this idea total madness? Maybe only good as an MvM map, since it's so small? I just don't want to commit to too huge a map for my first go.
On another note, I'm not sure if this has been posted, but has anyone considered an official quality system shock 2 tribute map? ns_shock?
So I went from this:
to this:
Frankly, I'm unsure if I have made the right decision and it is unlikely that I will know until I manage to get a grey box up and actually test it.
Bit of a nothing post, but maybe you will find it helpful.
In my experience, the right hand side of the map would be much less used/important, than the left side. If you could balance that out a bit it would produce a very interesting map.
Instead of a wagon-wheel layout, a line of tech points. Marines at one end, aliens at the other - think 2fort.
Though it won't be symmetrical. I can't imagine that working too well.